Goldschmidt win contract to supply a rail inspection vehicle for Berlin underground

Goldschmidt has secured a contract to supply a rail inspection vehicle with combined testing, measuring and analysis technology for the Berlin underground.

PLR Prüftechnik Linke und Rühe GmbH – a Goldschmidt company – has been awarded the final contract for the delivery of a rail inspection vehicle by the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG) as general contractor. Berlin’s underground network has around 150 kilometres of lines, with about 400 kilometres of track, and carries about 1.5 million passengers a day. In the future, the rail inspection vehicle will be used to reliably and completely record and evaluate the condition of the rails in the entire underground network to prove operational safety and as a basis for planning corrective and preventive measures for rail maintenance. The vehicle will be equipped with an ultrasonic inspection system for the detection and evaluation of fractures, cracks, and other internal irregularities in the rail, an eddy current testing system for the evaluation of surface cracks, a geometry measurement system for longitudinal profile, transverse profile, and track gauge as well as a video inspection system for the detection of defects on sleepers or rail fastenings.

“The inspection vehicle for BVG will be the first vehicle of its kind for a local public transport company that records the condition of the infrastructure so comprehensively, all on just one single vehicle,” Stefan Damm, Head of the Business Field Inspection Solutions for the Goldschmidt Group, said. “Results are analysed with support of artificial intelligence and documented automatically. We are pleased that BVG, as a pioneer, is taking this step towards an integrated application of state-of-the-art inspection and measurement technology together with Goldschmidt.”

“We see this as proof of our strategy aiming at offering all systems from a single source and to integrate them on various vehicle sizes, depending on individual customer requirements,” Dr. Georg Friberg, CEO of the Goldschmidt Group, said.

The Goldschmidt Group is a leading provider for measuring and testing solutions and offers measuring and testing devices for each application area. Whether as a hand-held device or integrated in trolleys, track carts, road-rail vehicles or inspection trains, state-of-the-art technologies provide precise measuring and testing results in a uniform format, making safety and quality tangible. This basis allows the development of maintenance strategies and the derivation of specific measures.